Monday, February 14, 2011

Humanspace Re-Alignment

A few astute readers noticed that the alignment of the Wimperer was given as inimical. I initially had debated whether to retain alignment in Humanspace Empires at all, adopt the Good and Evil alignments of EPT, the Stability and Change alignments of later Tekumel games, the Chaos, Neutral, Law alignments of D&D, or go with something else entirely.

At this point I've pretty much decided on the latter approach and ripped off Gorgonmilk's great alignment scheme as detailed in his post Hidden Planet: Design Notes:

Alignment only applies to monsters. It's more of a method for me to characterize their relationship to the PCs in a really general way. The three alignments are Inimical, Neutral and Benevolent. These are not the cosmic properties alignments represent in D&D.

I feel that Inimical and Neutral, at least, fit perfectly with my vision for Humanspace. I'm not completely sure if alignment should be "monster only" or if Benevolent is right for the friendly pole. I suppose in this scheme, alignment could be seen as simply a metric of a monster's disposition to humanity and its allies in Humanspace. As such, if alignments were extended to non-monsters, nearly all humans and members of allied races would be aligned Benevolent (or perhaps Allied).

Stability and Change are certainly relevant within Humanspace, as contact with the inter-planar entities associated with these cosmic polarities is possible despite the thicker skin of the Humanspace Universe than that of Tekumel's pocket universe. It is a major (and perhaps very non-canonical) conceit of the design of the Humanspace setting that space travelers spend sufficient time outside the Universe that contact with inter-planar entities and the ability to tap into inter-planar powers is possible. It is also my understanding that the Lords of Stability and Change were not the first or most powerful god-like inter-dimensional entities that reached out to (or for) mankind. In the time of the Space-faring Ancients, it appears, that those beings that later became known as the Pariah Gods were more accessible from or more interested in the Universe of Humanspace, even if only because of hunger...

As it is possible that PCs in Humanspace might contact and ally with inimical beings or entities of one sort or another, perhaps they should have alignments...

Reviews

Blurbs

"Humanspace Empires is a pulp science fiction game set in the space opera "pre-history" of Prof. M.A.R. Barker's classic fantasy world of Tekumel...[with] a rules engine that implements the best aspects of the original fantasy role playing system and Empire of the Petal Throne..."

"Humanspace Empires is the best upcoming Science Fantasy project on the net. Forget Stars Without a Number, embrace your Sub-atomic Disintegrator Rifle and go shoot some motherfucking demon in the outer space!!"

"If you have run—and loved—an older edition of D&D than you will be completely comfortable running this system ... closer in spirit to the simple, pre-TSR OD&D variant Empire of the Petal Throne than the published one."

"A better one for the OSR: playing What If… with the original games. Humanspace Empires is what if with MAR Barker’s Empire of the Petal Throne, earlier in the timeline of that game and focused on the space opera aspects of the setting."

"This setting is like a combo of star wars, star trek, & dune on acid mixed with influences of old fashioned pulp in a blender with the setting on high mix! Got that! Its that good & this is only the playtest version!"